Reading University campus, and W. is full of dread. He has the feeling that it's about to go terribly wrong. What, our presentation? No, no – more than that, W. says. Something catastrophic is about to happen.
I knew Reading would appal him, I tell him. How could it be otherwise? On the bus out to the campus, he was already squirming. Driveways packed with Range Rovers and 4X4s. Mock Tudor houses. Mock Georgian ones. Mock Victorian ones, in great estates. All the styles of history and mocking history, laughing at it. This is the end of the world, W. says. The eternal end.
Did it ever have a history, Reading? Did anything ever happen here? But he knows it did. He's read about the Abbey, and he knows Oscar Wilde was imprisoned here. He might as well be imprisoned here, W. said on the bus. He might as well write his own Ballad of Reading Jail.
We're in enemy territory. We've been parachuted deep behind enemy lines. And what's our mission? A suicide mission, it can only be that, W. says. A soiling ourselves mission. – 'Go on, you start'.
This has to be our last lecture tour, W. says. This has to be the last time, the last dog and pony show. We came here against our better judgement, it's true. We were invited, personally invited, and how could we refuse? Our trouble is, we're too polite, W. says. We want to please people, despite everything.
How will we survive? We need a rallying point, for one thing. – 'Look for a pub!' We need a place of safety, W. says. We need a panic room. And we need a general strategy. – 'Keep your head down, talk to no one'.
Then we spot him in the foyer: the plenary speaker who W. feels is an ally. How did they get him here?, I wonder. – 'Just as they got us. Through flattery', W. says. Suddenly we feel a great surge of tenderness. We have to protect him, we decide. He doesn't belong here. For one thing, he actually has ideas. He needs to be rescued!
We resolve to smuggle him off campus to a pub. We need to save him, the plenary speaker. To save thought!
And in the meantime? Be careful. There are enemies everywhere.
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